From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" Date: 2007-07-21T13:11:30+09:00 Subject: Re: The Pebble in the Ruby Shoe Chad Perrin wrote: > On Fri, Jul 20, 2007 at 03:46:11AM +0900, Steven Lumos wrote: >> Chad Perrin writes: >>> As you say, the zero-based array is a practical matter related to the >>> work of programming (as well as being related to the applicability of set >>> theory to language design), and not a convenience for those wacky >>> mathematicians with their nonstandard way of counting (kind of a strange >>> claim to make). In contrast with your implication that this is somehow a >>> *bad* practical decision, however, it's actually the case that, by and >>> large, the benefits for natural sequential operations in programming and >>> the in-built compatibility of zero-based arrays with certain concepts of >>> set theory add up to a strikingly practical, and quite positive, reason >>> for zero-based arrays. >> Not only did I not mean to imply that, but I'm not sure I can even >> parse "bad practical decision". If I knew the evidence I had implied >> in support of my implied claim then maybe I could. :-) >> >> But I even explicitly said that "It's a good and safe decision >> supported by decades of computing convention and habit..." > > That would be why I used terms like "seem" and so on in that email -- I > wasn't 100% certain of your intent, based on what you said. > > >>> In other words, your premises are largely correct, but they do not lead >>> to the conclusions you seem to suggest. >> I'm just sick of hearing that Ruby does such and such because >> mathematicians like it. > > Fair enough. I agree with you on that score, actually -- that it gets > kind of old seeing people try to equate everything in computer science > with the will of mathematicians. That's the sort of thinking that leads > to CS students wasting time on trigonometry when they could be spending > it on something useful to computer science, like linear algebra. > Well ... maybe "Computer Science" students don't need to know trigonometry, but I doubt very seriously a trig-impaired person could get an Electrical Engineering degree. Hell, if they didn't have trig and calculus and analytic geometry under their belts on the SAT, they couldn't get *into* a EE program! I was actually one of the first students in the USA to get calculus and analytic geometry in high school. This was right after Sputnik and I lived in a town full of scientists and engineers. I was also fortunate to have graduated before the "New Math", which was mostly set theory. So ... would you say queuing theory is useful to computer science? I certainly would. Well, it turns out, as we mathematicians like to say, that you can use a Fast Fourier Transform to solve some queuing theory problems that are more or less intractable otherwise. Can you do a Fast Fourier Transform without sines and cosines?